I have a question about temp files. Specifically, some
extremely large ones in the following location:

C:\Documents and Settings\administrator\Local
Settings\Temp\

There are some subfolders in there with names
like "tmp000006fd". In these subfolders are files with
similar names. Some of these files are larger than 400
megs. What can they be and are they safe to remove?

Thanks for any help.

If a temp file does not have Today's date and the system was rebooted then - Yes they are
safe to delete.
The REAL question is - What is creating them ???

Please go to one or more of the below online scanners and perform a scan of your platform
then report back your results.

Trend:
http://housecall.antivirus.com
http://housecall.trendmicro.com

McAfee:
http://www.mcafee.com/myapps/mfs/default.asp

Panda:
http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/

Symantec:
http://security.symantec.com/

Dave



"mutley" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:7c8701c40321$deb4ee20$a501280a@phx.gbl...
| I have a question about temp files. Specifically, some
| extremely large ones in the following location:
|
| C:\Documents and Settings\administrator\Local
| Settings\Temp\
|
| There are some subfolders in there with names
| like "tmp000006fd". In these subfolders are files with
| similar names. Some of these files are larger than 400
| megs. What can they be and are they safe to remove?
|
| Thanks for any help.

The only legitimate reson I can think of for having such large files in the temp directoy is trhat you have started installs of applications and canceled them during the setup. Or the setup has failed for one reason or another. Also consider that self extracting exe files will usually unpack to the temp folder. The installation of whatever was unpacked will not remove the installation files.

--
George Hester
__________________________________
"mutley" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:7c8701c40321$deb4ee20$a501280a@phx.gbl...

Coincidently, one of those free virus scans is how I
discovered the large files. I was running the McAfee scan
and it seemed to be hanging on a file for a very long
time. I cancelled the scan and went to check out the file
in Windows Explorer. The file in question was one of
several large temp files in a few similar folders.

Anyway, I deleted them and have had no problems. I also
tried the Panda virus scan after deleting the files. It
detected three viruses but I think that they were
previously quarentined by my current AV program (PC-
Cillin). So, I think that they were harmless.
Regardless, Panda was able to clean them. So, if they
were a prob, they aren't any longer.

Thanks for the suggestions.